National and Labour deputies clash over ED pressure, GP fees and targets
Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni and National deputy leader Nicola Willis clashed over health policy on RNZ Morning Report on 15 September.
The interview followed fresh reports of sustained pressure in emergency departments. Health Minister Simeon Brown acknowledged on Wednesday morning that the system was under significant pressure, according to RNZ. Staff at Tauranga Hospital Emergency Department said the ED had run at up to 200 percent capacity without the staffing needed. Staff at North Shore Hospital ED reported chronic understaffing, with some patients waiting 50 hours. Wellington Hospital closed off part of a corridor this week to accommodate extra beds amid high patient numbers.
Sepuloni put the pressure down to funding and access in primary care. She said government health funding had not kept up with inflation and real costs. Labour has proposed three free GP visits, free prescriptions, free maternity scans and free cervical screening, alongside a family doctor loan scheme and a jobs guarantee for graduate nurses. Sepuloni said the free GP visits policy would help keep people out of emergency departments and take pressure off the health system.
Willis defended the Government's record and sheeted the current strain to decisions taken under the previous Labour government. National had not yet announced its 2026 health policy, but in 2023 it committed to restoring health targets. Willis said the targets scrapped by the previous Labour government had shown progress on child immunisations and ED wait times. She blamed Labour for a botched health restructure, the elimination of targets and a Pharmac funding fiscal cliff.
On workforce and spending, Willis said 2,300 new nurses would be in hospitals by the end of the year. She said nurse turnover had fallen from almost 12 percent under Labour to 8.4 percent. She said the Government had put multi-billion dollar increases into every Budget, with extra Pharmac funding, 24/7 clinic initiatives and a new medical school at Waikato, according to RNZ.
Willis and Sepuloni are familiar opponents in this slot. The pair have appeared together previously for Morning Report's weekly political panel, a regular deputy-leader exchange RNZ formalised last year.
The broader context here is a familiar election-year contest over where accountability sits in health. Labour is pitching primary-care subsidies as an ED demand lever. That puts the emphasis on cost barriers, GP capacity and early intervention. National is pitching targets, central control settings and workforce pipeline numbers as the corrective to the Health NZ restructure. That puts the emphasis on throughput, retention and Budget baselines. For Press Gallery watchers, the exchange matters less for new detail than for sequencing. Labour has put a costed primary-care offer on the table early. National's 2026 health policy is still to come. Until it lands, Ministers will be asked to defend ED performance on the Government's own target measures while arguing the system is still absorbing structural change.
The next test is concrete. The Government points to nurse numbers by December, turnover rates and target reporting on immunisations and ED waits. Labour points to real funding growth after inflation, GP fees and graduate nurse placement. Both sets of numbers can be checked against Health NZ data, Budget documents and quarterly target releases. The debate on Morning Report set those benchmarks out plainly. Voters who work in the system will read the winter ED figures against them.
